Boating is on the rebound: the numbers from the VELAFestival say so, too

In 2015, boating returned to growth in Italy with an important 21.3 percent over 2014 and shipbuilding sales growth of 20 percent. Shipowners can finally smile, too: for the first time in years, leasing contracts also go back up.
As shown in “Boating in Figures,” the publication produced by Ucina and the Edison Foundation that analyzes the situation of the boating industry every year. In essence, the overall 2015 turnover of the Nautical industry stands at 2.9 billion euros(+17.1% over 2014), including 950 million related to the domestic market.

Domestic production for Italy, at 550 million in 2015 as a whole, grew by 13.1 percent and 77 percent reached foreign markets. We like to highlight the growth of the Italian market, confirmed by theincrease in the number of leased contracts, which in fact registered a growth of 44% (+26% in absolute value) in the first five months of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015.

Obviously, it is the shipbuilding sector that takes the lion’s share with a turnover of 1.8 billion, of which about 1.6 billion was generated by new construction units alone (+20 percent) and 207 million by repair and garaging activities. Domestic shipbuilding production considered as a whole is placed86.4 percent in foreign markets (1,540 million euros) , while non-EU markets absorb 74.5 percent of domestic exports (1,149 million).
The remaining 13.6 percent of production (243 million) was placed on the Italian market. An ascent that bodes well for the future but, more importantly, seems to confirm a clear feeling: the storm is behind us.

These numbers are also reflected in the ever-increasing numbers of the last three editions of the TAG Heuer VELAFestival: first. the number of visitors, which has grown by 55 percent in three years rising from 10,000 in 2014, to 13,000 in 2015, reaching the 2016 record with 15,000 visitors. Together with the participants exhibitors and partners also grew by 41 percent. The 45 in 2014 became 60 in 2015 and 86 in 2016. The growth in physical participation in the event went hand in hand with a Vertiginous virtual growth that has grown 257% in three years: let’s talk about our sites velafestival.com and giornaledellavela.com: 2014 unique users were 115,000 with 402,000 page views; in 2015 we had 170,000 unique users for 705,000 pages while in 2016 296,000 users for 1,096,000 page views.

What do we expect for the 2017 edition of VELAFestival? Obviously even greater growth: we expect 95 exhibitors and 20,0000 visitors, among whom, we are sure, you will be there!